Erik Spoelstra reveals what ‘really hurt’ Miami during inconsistent season

MIAMI – After The Miami Heat’s recent horrendous road trip, the team has a great opportunity with a three-game homestand starting Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns. With The heat goes through the process of adjusting to their different compositionsfranchise is approaching the halfway mark of the season as head coach Erik Spoelstra discusses key issues with the team.

After a hot 14-7 start to the season, Miami plateaued, aided by opposing teams coming up with a new free-flowing, fast-paced offense and players coming in and out with injuries. The team would lose the next eight of nine games, then win the next five of six.

Now, the Heat enter their homestand having lost every game on their recent road trip, which included a 122-94 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves and then getting shut out by the league-worst (record-wise) Indiana Pacers, 123-99. That would culminate in a 124-112 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, as while it was a better outing, Spoelstra would explain to ClutchPoints what he has “really hurt” the team.

“But I’d say in the last month or five weeks, we’ve only had two errors in the game, and the rest of them we’ve played really well for large parts of the games,” Spoelstra said. “To me that says we should have more wins than we have right now, but this inability to really hang on and have that consistency hurt us more, and we have to grow from that. I think we will, our guys understand that we have a competitive group. We have a group that has high aspirations, that wants to win, that wants to advance in the East.”

Asked Erik Spoelstra about the frustrating journey and what the underlying trends are.

“Now we have to be better in possession. The Indiana game, but we can’t afford to lose games like that, and with all due respect to the Pacers . . .”

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Erik Spoelstra on what the Heat “can’t afford” to do

As rumors have recently surrounded Vrućina With the February deadline and the availability of stars like Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies, there’s no doubt that Spoelstra and the rest of the team are focused on turning things around this season. In addition to coaching, Miami is trying to overcome Bam Adebayo‘s immediate decline and Tyler Herro‘s return, with a starting lineup looking to adjust.

For Spoelstra, he would talk about the mental aspect that needs to be improved, pointing to the outing against the Pacers, saying the Heat “can’t afford to lose games like that.”

“I mean, there’s been issues in the third quarter in all three games, where there’s been massive runs, it seemed right about six minutes … 20 to six runs in the last six minutes, we didn’t handle it well. Now it’s a combination of some of our starters, our second unit. We’ve just got to be better at sustaining,” Spoelstra said.

“Now the Indiana game, you know, I don’t like to ever say just blow the game away, but because we can’t afford to lose those types of games,” Spoelstra continued. “And that’s with all due respect, you know, to the Pacers, they just got a big win against Boston. But with the mindset and the energy and the play that we had against OKC, they’re going to serve us well against Indiana.”

At Ami’s rate, Miami enters the home stretch at 20-19, which puts them in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, where they finished the previous three seasons. Looking to climb out of playoff purgatory, Miami looks to break away in the aforementioned homestand, starting Tuesday against the Suns, Thursday against the Boston Celtics and finally Saturday in a rematch with the Thunder.